Amy Froide, Associate Professor of History, has won a short term fellowship at the Folger Shakespeare Library for 2013-14 for a project on gender and accounting in early modern Britain.
Nohemi Voglozin, a doctoral candidate in Geography and Environmental Systems, is the recipient of Biodiversity International’s 2013 Vavilov-Frankel Fellowship (only two are awarded annually). The award of $20,000 is to support research related to the conservation and use of genetic resources in developing countries. This is Voglozin’s second prestigious fellowship since coming to UMBC in 2007–she won the Norman Borlaug Leadership in Agricultural Program (LEAP) Fellowship in 2008.
Renetta G. Tull, Associate Vice Provost for Graduate Student Development and Postdoctoral Affairs and Director, PROMISE: Maryland’s Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP), will be co-chairing a forum on August 14 in Mexico called Women in STEM at the Latin American and Caribbean Consortium of Engineering Institutions (LACCEI) conference.
The synopsis of the forum says,
“This year, we will offer a session to discuss Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). The 2013 LACCEI session on “Women in STEM” will feature a report on STEM women faculty in Puerto Rico from the U.S. National Science Foundation’s ADVANCE Hispanic Women in STEM project as an exemplar of a professional network. We are interested in hearing about other initiatives for women that exist throughout Latin America and the Caribbean and will examine opportunities to build more connections within the LACCEI community.
Suggestions from this workshop will be compiled into a report for LACCEI that will be available in the online proceedings to inform the community about programs that support current and future women STEM professionals
All are invited to this session, which is designed to engage women at all levels (students, postdocs, professors, and professionals), and from all backgrounds and countries, in a conversation on career choices, life/work balance, and the impact of family and traditions on advancement decisions.
This Forum is a continuation of the Women in Engineering Initiative started in 2010 by LACCEI and the Organization of American States (OAS) Engineering for the Americas (EftA), and supports the OAS Ministers of Science and Technology’s Vision 20/25 in Science, Technology, and Innovation for the Americas: Hemispheric Cooperation for Competitiveness and Prosperity in a Knowledge Economy and Plan of Action of Panama (Group 2). This Plan of Action proposes to increase the number of female and male graduates in science, technology, engineering and technical education.
The Vision 20/25 and Action Plan target the goal for 2025 to increase by at least 50% the number of female and male graduates in STEM.”
Economics professor Scott Farrow is co-author and co-editor, with Richard Zerbe, Jr., of the new book, Principles and Standards for Benefit-Cost Analysis (Edward Elgar Publishing 2013). The book website notes:
Benefit–cost analysis informs which policies or programs most benefit society when implemented by governments and institutions around the world. This volume brings together leading researchers and practitioners to recommend strategies and standards to improve the consistency and credibility of such analyses, assisting analysts of all types in achieving a greater uniformity of practice.
Reviewer John D. Graham of Indiana University writes, “This book is a superb textbook treatment of benefit-cost analysis. It is well designed for students in public policy, public administration, public health, social work, environmental affairs, law and business.”
Larry DeWitt, public policy Ph.D. student and former public historian for the U.S. Social Security Administration, has published the new book The Other Welfare: Supplemental Security Income and U.S. Social Policy (Cornell University Press 2013) written with co-author Edward D. Berkowitz.
The book offers a comprehensive history of Supplemental Security Income (SSI), from its origins in 1972 as part of President Nixon’s social reform efforts to its pivotal role in the politics of the Clinton administration.
Reviewer Christopher D. Howard (College of William & Mary) writes, “Calling The Other Welfare one of the best histories of a U.S. social program would be true, but that would not be strong enough praise…Edward D. Berkowitz and Larry DeWitt take a relatively unknown social program and make its history seem absolutely central to the history of U.S. social policy.”
Stress Testing the USA: Public Policy and Reaction to Disaster Events, a new book by professor of public policy John Rennie Short, arrives in stores tomorrow!
Stress testing is a procedure, common to fields from medicine to engineering, that is used to reveal a system’s weaknesses. In his new book, Short applies this concept to analyzing four serious traumas the United States experienced at the start of the 21st century: the invasion of Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, the financial meltdown, and the BP oil spill.
In Stress Testing the USA (Palgrave MacMillan), Short identifies specific structural flaws with the potential to fracture our nation: a large, active military that promotes a state of permanent war; an aging physical infrastructure with bridges and roads that receive failing grades; financial and corporate deregulation; and a blind acceptance of institutions’ increasingly risky behavior.
Identifying these systemic problems clarifies a broader concern for Short: our tendency to sideline unpopular perspectives or more subtle voices that might alert us to possible threats. “For every event there was a small group of people who new exactly what was happening,” says Short, “we just didn’t listen to them. So the point of the book is we should be more careful and more attentive to alternative, dissident voices.”
His book website notes, “Illuminating and relevant, Stress Testing the USA is a guide to what ails the United States and what needs to be done to fix it that proves essential to any scholar of public policy, current affairs, or disaster management.”
Theodore Gonzalves, associate professor and chair of American Studies, has been named a Senior Postdoctoral Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution for 2013, where he will work with the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.
Gonzalves’ project, “Singing Truth to Power: The Story of Paredon Records,” traces the cultural history of a record label whose output of recorded music and speeches documented revolutionary movements throughout the globe. According to the collection’s finding aid, the label’s 50 record albums constitute a unique historical documentation of the political protest and revolutionary currents in the world over the course of three decades. Thirty-one of the fifty albums come from national liberation movements represented in Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
The Smithsonian has been supporting study and research in a variety of ways, including fellowships from predoctoral to postdoctoral scholars, since its founding in 1846. The number of senior postdoctoral fellows selected each year ranges from four to 10, making this one of the institution’s most competitive awards. The Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage is a research and educational unit of the Smithsonian Institution promoting the understanding and continuity of diverse, contemporary grassroots cultures in the United States and around the world.
Gonzalves’ research and creative work has received previous support with a Fulbright Senior Scholar award, a Moeson fellowship at the Library of Congress, a Meet the Composer grant, and other awards from humanities councils in Maryland and Hawai‘i.
Christine Mallinson, Language, Literacy & Culture, was one of three faculty experts invited to present at the 2013 Florida College of Advanced Judicial Studies. Mallinson presented a three-hour workshop on “Judicial Fact Finding and Decision Making: The Role of Language and Language Variation” to county, circuit, trial court, and appellate judges. The Florida College of Advanced Judicial Studies, held annually, provides advanced continuing education to a select group of judges seeking to improve their adjudication skills and acquire more specialized knowledge about fact finding and decision making.
Junkspace, 2012, a collaborative installation piece by Department of Visual Arts faculty, Lynn Cazabon and Neal McDonald, was selected for exhibition at the WRO 15th Media Arts Biennale, in Wrocław, Poland. The event features work by artists around the world, and this year, celebrates 50 years of electronic art.
Part of WRO’s Rings of Saturn exhibition, Junkspace “is a time and location sensitive video installation and corresponding iOS App that superimposes two forms of waste, one earth—bound (electronic waste) and the other celestial (orbital debris).” Learn more, or download the app at the installation’s website.
